The Confessions of Catherine de Medici Quotes

“The truth is, not one of is innocent. We all have sins to confess.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“Love is a treacherous emotion. You will fare better without it. We Medici always have.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“The truth is, not one of us is innocent. We all have sins to confess.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“You'll fare beer without love. We Medici always do." As soon as I spoke, I regretted it. I'd remembered Papa Clement's phrase exactly, used it to the same horrid purpose. I saw her flinch, take a small step back. I wanted to console her, to somehow ease the harsh reality of what I'd said. But I could not. I would not lie to her nor pretend the task I set before her was anything other than what it was: an act of submission, which could entail the loss of her youthful dreams.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“There are many ways to obtain our desires, ma petite. Remember that, for it will serve you well.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“I was fifty-seven years old. I had contended with death all my life, burying a husband and four children, killing a lover and countless foes, but this small loss undid me. If death had come for me that day, I would have welcomed it.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“I felt it build inside me—an eruption of exhaustion, anxiety, and relief so overwhelming that when he reached our pew and sat beside Margot, who turned bitter eyes to me, I threw back my head and laughed aloud. I was still a Medici and I would survive.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“He informed me that Huguenots throughout France were bolting across our borders into Geneva. There, I’d been branded as Queen Jezebel. Printed pamphlets declaimed every vile rumor told of me: I was the Italian serpent, a monstrous being who’d schemed with Spain to exterminate their faith. When once I might have been outraged, quick to protest my innocence, I told Birago to do nothing. Let all the calumny fall upon me, if it would absolve my sons.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“He had betrayed my trust and gone to war against me, and now he committed the ultimate offense: he defamed my flesh and blood. This time, I would have vengeance.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“To be a woman alone in this world requires every weapon you possess, every last bit of strength and endurance. You cut away pieces of yourself without realizing it, until you have everything and nothing at the same time.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“Nie rozumiesz, bo nie wiesz jak wielka jest niszcząca moc władzy. Nadal wierzysz, że można wszystko rozwiązać dzięki logice, że ludzie posłuchają głosu rozsądku, bo przecież w gruncie rzeczy w obliczu Boga wszyscy jesteśmy równi.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“Czy zawsze musisz zobaczyć, żeby uwierzyć?”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“No truth can be determined that concerns the future.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“But we are each created in God's image and must be allowed to seek our path to Him in our own way.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“He died as he lived”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“But the barren seed that is your family—they are damned.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“It is always difficult for the lioness to let her cub leave the pride but in the end she must. And the cub must learn to be a lion in his own right.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“He plays with evil. And evil he will wreak. It is his fate.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“There will never be peace while he and his kind live.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“You’ll fare better without love. We Medici always do.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“You can’t play both sides forever. In the end”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“Without you”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“The young lion shall overcome the old in single combat.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“Henri reached for his goblet”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“The truth is”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“when overhearing criticism of his late mother-in-law, it was Henri IV who retorted, “I ask you, what could the woman do, left by the death of her husband with five little children and two families who thought only of grasping the Crown—our own [the Bourbons] and the Guises? I am surprised she didn’t do worse.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“And I ask myself, What epitaph will history inscribe for me?”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“Have I not struggled as much as any other for my blood? Others live fewer years; accomplish a mere fraction of what I have; and yet they sit enthroned with halos about their brows, while I sink like a villain in my own calumny.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“I have never placed much belief in infidel credos nor even in my own church’s promise of an everlasting life. I’ve witnessed too much treachery in the name of religion.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

“But no truth can be certain that concerns the future, I thought, and I pressed a hand to my mouth, stifling an acid burst of laughter. Fate, it seemed, was the cruelest trickster of all.”
― C.W. Gortner, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici